HELLO!

My name is Julia Ticona and I'm a post-doctoral scholar at the Data & Society Research Institute. I'll be joining the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication as an Assistant Professor in fall 2018. I have my PhD in sociology from the University of Virginia, and am a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. I'm also a graduate of Wellesley College, and a third generation teacher.

My book project examines the increasingly important role of digital technologies in polarizing and insecure labor markets in the US. I interviewed high and low wage workers to understand how they use their smartphones, social media, and apps to cobble together strategies to make a living, and cope with the fall-out of these conditions on their personal lives. Workers at either end of the labor market share similar sets of practices. However, the unequal contexts where these practices are deployed create patterns of privilege and exploitation that exacerbate inequalities within a rapidly changing world of work.